Shannon Nickinson: After April deluge, Escambia County makes stormwater a ‘big deal’

Stormwater – at least for now – is no longer a dirty word in Escambia County.

The question is, how long will that last?

Two years ago, talking about stormwater and low-impact design in polite company was a guaranteed snooze-fest.

Now it’s what all the cool government officials are talking about. And for once, the regular folks are listening.

A year or two ago, if you wanted to talk to people about investing in stormwater, “There would be no appetite,” says County Administrator Jack Brown.

Now, it’s a big deal that the county adopted “the 100-year standard” versus 25-year standard for new development.

That mean new development will be held to a standard of construction in the event of a 100-year rain event. The old standard was a 25-year rain event.

Even that wouldn’t have been able to contain all the water that drenched our area last April.

The epic rainfall a year ago of April 29-30 dropped by some measurements 26 inches on the area in a 24-hour period, putting it in the 250- to 400-year storm event category, City of Pensacola Engineer Derrik Owens said last year.

But it’s a step in the right direction when it comes to the future.

The multimillion dollar question, though, remains for local governments: How far do you go with incentives for home and property owners to retrofit their existing subdivisions, neighborhoods and businesses with things like pervious concrete and rain gardens, cisterns and islands of grass in parking lots that are now seas of asphalt?

“That is an issue that is going to take more research,” Brown says. “There are only so many things you can concrete over. That gets back to more green design, using more rock and pervious surfaces. If you look at downtown Pensacola, it’s major, major impervious surface and even if we take off the north part, you’re still going to have major issues downtown.”

There are mitigation programs through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but not all steps can be made by government alone.

The City of Pensacola has a stormwater fee; the county does not. It has used local option sales tax as the primary way to address stormwater issues.

“I think right now you don’t have an appetite for a county stormwater fee,” Brown says. “I think you have an appetite for protecting as much LOST funding as you can to address those stormwater things.”

Brown also wants to use LOST funds when possible as local match money to leverage grants from other sources, stretching those dollars even further.

Many folks look downtown at the parking lots at the Pensacola Bay Center, the Chappie James Building, Pensacola City Hall, for example, and see a valuable public statement that could be made by replacing asphalt with porous concrete or pavers that would allow more rainwater to percolate into the ground where it falls.

The same opportunity exists in the parking lots of Cordova Mall, Town and Country Plaza, and dozens of other privately owned spaces that with the same improvements could help take stormwater out of the system further upstream.

“A very common thing that people need to think about,” Brown says, “if you’re going to build a home and your home is lower than the county or state road next to it, that should tell you something.”

“Water respects no political boundary” has become the mantra of the post-April deluge world.

Brown takes meetings with state and federal officials right alongside Bob McLaughlin, a guy who used have Brown’s job. He’s now on contract with the city to act as pointman in the hunt for funding streams to improve our community’s resilience for future disasters.

Together they plead the case for projects that will help both the city and the county.

Even imagining such a scenario in iterations of local government past would have been impossible.

So that is progress.

“We have to be responsible when we build, and to correct things when we have the opportunity to correct it,” Brown says. “You have people say that’s going to be expensive to build, but when we work together for the common good, it lessens the cost on everybody.”

Or, as the Fram oil filter commercial used to say, “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.”

“I feel like people would rather pay now responsibly,” Brown says.

That may not last. Which means city and county fathers are wise to strike while the memories of washed out Johnson Avenue, Old Corry Field Road and Piedmont Road are fresh in everyone’s mind.

They are also smart to preach the Gospel of Managed Expectations.

The Delano drainage project, for example, is one project that has earned a lot of attention from city and county officials.

Getting this project right could take water out of the system that rushes into Long Hollow – and downtown Pensacola. Add to that portfolio the idea suggested by the city’s consultant, Arcadis, for a chain of parks in Long Hollow that can bear stormwater when needed, and be enjoyed as green spaces in dry weather, and you could have a solution that shows collaboration and an eye for green stormwater management.

Of all the computer modeling the city did in relationship to the April flood, City Administrator Eric Olson says yet to be modeled is how the area would have fared if the Delano project were completed and April 29-30 had happened.

And until Escambia County commissioners decide if they will build a new jail in the Delano drainage area, a big question mark remains.

And should all those dominoes fall in just the right way, flooding rains could still come – and could still outpace the best intentions.

“What we don’t want people to think is that it’s not going to flood,” Brown says. “It can get better. It takes a commitment and time. Look at how long it has taken to get us to this stage.”

Shannon Nickinson is the editor of PensacolaToday.com, a news and commentary site in Pensacola. Follow her on Twitter @snickinson. Column courtesy of Context Florida.